Recap: Wireless Broadband and the Future of Spectrum Policy

The Senate Commerce held a hearing, Wireless Broadband and the Future of Spectrum Policy, on Wednesday, July 29, 2015. The aim was to explore US spectrum policy and how it could be improved to accommodate consumers' growing demands for wireless broadband. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing the federal government to free up more wireless airwaves. Among the ideas floated by lawmakers and witnesses were proposals to incentivize federal agencies to hand over their valuable spectrum to the private sector. That could include providing more money to federal agencies to help them move their operations to different bandwidths, freeing up airwaves.

Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) said, “This committee should exert that same degree of leadership and consensus in addressing this future spectrum policy,” but he cautioned later that it was unlikely any bill would be completed before the committee finished its series of hearings on the subject. He also said there is no guarantee a spectrum bill would be attached to a larger overall of the cornerstone Communications Act. “I suspect that it gets attached to some vehicle. … It would be hard to picture moving stuff like this as a freestanding bill,” Chairman Thune said. "But whether or not it gets attached to a vehicle coming out of this committee, which would be a broader telecom rewrite or update, I would say that’s a possibility or it could be freestanding or attached to something else,” he added. He said the focus of long-range plan should be on (1) improving how government manages, shares, and relinquishes spectrum; (2) identifying specific bands to open up for private, commercial use; and (3) reducing the cost of deployment.

Sen Bill Nelson (D-FL), ranking member of the committee, took the opportunity of Federal Communications Commission member Jessica Rosenworcel's appearance to praise her leadership on spectrum policy and, noting that her renomination is before the Committee, advised the majority to take it up without delay.

There was general consensus that the effort needed to balance licensed and unlicensed. Not surprisingly, witness Meredith Attwell Baker of CTIA: The Wireless Association, put the exclamation point on licensed. Commissioner Rosenworcel talked about a balanced approach, but put in a plug for unlicensed. "We need more Wi-Fi," she told the senators, and said that unlicensed need to get a "cut" of whatever spectrum is freed up going forward. Commissioner Rosenworcel has argued that to pry more spectrum out of the hands of government agencies, they should be given a carrot rather than shown a stick. She continued that pitch at the hearing, saying the government should consider a version of the broadcast incentive auction for government spectrum users. Baker agreed that would be a good idea, as did Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), who has teamed up on a bill to that effect. But Blair Levin, architect of the National Broadband Plan, said he had some doubts that a government version of the auction would work.

In his testimony, Levin urged Congress to direct the creation of a plan for repurposing the government spectrum.